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Helena Bonham Carter
| image = | caption = Bonham Carter in 2011 at the Met Gala | birth_date = | birth_place = Islington, London, England | education = South Hampstead High School Westminster School | residence = Hampstead, London, England | occupation = Actress | years_active = 1983–present | partner = Kenneth Branagh (1994–99) Tim Burton (2001–14) | children = 2 | parents = Raymond Bonham Carter | family = Bonham Carter | awards = Full list }} Helena Bonham Carter (born 26 May 1966) is a British actress best known for her roles in low-budget art films and independent films to large-scale Hollywood productions. She was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actress for her role as Kate Croy in The Wings of the Dove (1997). For her role as Queen Elizabeth in The King's Speech (2010), she was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress and won the BAFTA Award for Best Actress in a Supporting Role. She also won the 2010 International Emmy Award for Best Actress for her role as British author Enid Blyton in the TV film Enid (2009). Bonham Carter began her film career playing the title character in Lady Jane (1986), and playing Lucy Honeychurch in A Room with a View (1985). Her other film roles include Ophelia in Hamlet (1990), Where Angels Fear to Tread (1991), Howards End (1992), Elizabeth Lavenza in Mary Shelley's Frankenstein (1994), Woody Allen's Mighty Aphrodite (1995), Marla Singer in Fight Club (1999), Bellatrix Lestrange in the Harry Potter series (2007–11), Skynet in Terminator Salvation (2009), Miss Havisham in Great Expectations (2012), Madame Thénardier in Les Misérables (2012), the Fairy Godmother in Cinderella (2015) and Rose Weil in Ocean's 8 (2018). She has frequently collaborated with director Tim Burton; in Planet of the Apes (2001), Big Fish (2003), Corpse Bride (2005), Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (2005), Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street (2007), Dark Shadows (2012), and playing the Red Queen in Alice in Wonderland (2010) and its sequel Alice Through the Looking Glass (2016). Her other television films include A Pattern of Roses (1983), Fatal Deception: Mrs. Lee Harvey Oswald (1993), Live from Baghdad (2002), Toast (2010), and Burton & Taylor (2013). In 2018, she is set to portray Princess Margaret in the Netflix drama series The Crown. She was made a Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) in the 2012 New Year Honours list for services to drama, and in January 2014, the British prime minister, David Cameron, announced that Bonham Carter had been appointed to Britain's new national Holocaust Commission. Early life Bonham Carter was born in Islington, London. Her father, Raymond Bonham Carter, who came from a prominent British political family, was a merchant banker and served as the alternative British director representing the Bank of England at the International Monetary Fund in Washington, D.C., during the 1960s. Her mother, Elena (née Propper de Callejón), is a psychotherapist who is of three quarters Jewish background, and whose own parents were diplomat Eduardo Propper de Callejón and painter, Baroness Hélène Fould-Springer. Helena's paternal grandmother was politician and feminist icon Violet Asquith, daughter of H. H. Asquith, Prime Minister of the United Kingdom during the first half of the First World War. Bonham Carter is the youngest of three children, with two brothers, Edward and Thomas. They were brought up in Golders Green and she was educated at South Hampstead High School, and completed her A-levels at Westminster School. Bonham Carter was denied admission to King's College, Cambridge, not because of her academic performance but because college officials were afraid that she would leave during the course to pursue her acting career. When Bonham Carter was five her mother had a serious nervous breakdown, from which it took her three years to recover. Upon her recovery, her experience in therapy led her to become a psychotherapist herself – Bonham Carter has paid her to read her scripts and deliver her opinion of the characters' psychological motivations.Liam Lacey, "'English rose' blossoms into other roles", 18 January 1996, The Globe and Mail, D1 Five years after her mother's recovery, her father was diagnosed with acoustic neuroma. He suffered complications during an operation to remove the tumour that led to a stroke that left him half-paralysed and using a wheelchair.Valerie Grove, "How Helena Grew Up In a Violet Shadow", The Times, 10 May 1996 With her brothers at college, Bonham Carter was left to help her mother cope. She later studied her father's movements and mannerisms for her role in The Theory of Flight. He died in January 2004. Career Early career Bonham Carter, who has no formal acting training, entered the field winning a national writing contest (1979) and used the money to pay for her entry into the actors' Spotlight directory. She made her professional acting début at the age of 16 in a television commercial. She also had a part in a minor TV film, A Pattern of Roses. Her first lead film role was as Lady Jane Grey in Lady Jane (1986), which was given mixed reviews by critics. Her breakthrough role was Lucy Honeychurch in A Room with a View (1985), which was filmed after Lady Jane but released two months earlier. Bonham Carter also appeared in episodes of Miami Vice as Don Johnson's love interest during the 1986–87 season and then, in 1987 opposite Dirk Bogarde in The Vision, Stewart Granger in A Hazard of Hearts and John Gielgud in Getting It Right. Bonham Carter was originally cast in the role of Bess McNeill in Breaking the Waves, but backed out during production due to "the character's painful psychic and physical exposure", according to Roger Ebert.Roger Ebert, "British Film Likely to Win The Top Award at Cannes", Chicago Sun-Times, 20 May 1996, p. 40 The role went to Emily Watson, who was nominated for an Academy Award for her performance. In 1994, Bonham Carter appeared in a dream sequence during the second series of the British sitcom Absolutely Fabulous, as Edina Monsoon's daughter Saffron, who was normally played by Julia Sawalha. Throughout the series, references were made to Saffron's resemblance to Bonham Carter. Her early films led to her being typecast as a "corset queen", and "English rose", playing pre- and early 20th century characters, particularly in Merchant-Ivory films. She played Olivia in Trevor Nunn's film version of Twelfth Night in 1996. One of the high points of her early career was her performance as the scheming Kate Croy in the 1997 film adaption of The Wings of the Dove which was highly acclaimed internationally and netted her first Golden Globe and Academy Award nominations. She has since expanded her range, with her more recent films being Fight Club, Wallace & Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit, and her then-partner Tim Burton's Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, Corpse Bride, Big Fish, Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street, and Alice in Wonderland. Later career , promoting Wallace & Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit]] Bonham Carter speaks French fluently, and starred in a 1996 French film Portraits chinois. In August 2001, she was featured in Maxim. She played her second Queen of England when she was cast as Anne Boleyn in the ITV1 mini-series Henry VIII; however, her role was restricted, as she was pregnant with her first child at the time of filming."Day & Night," Kathryn Spencer, Julie Carpenter and Kate Bohdanowicz, 24 September 2003, The Express, p 36 Bonham Carter was a member of the 2006 Cannes Film Festival jury that unanimously selected The Wind That Shakes the Barley as best film. In May 2006, Bonham Carter launched her own fashion line, "The Pantaloonies", with swimwear designer Samantha Sage. Their first collection, called Bloomin' Bloomers, is a Victorian style selection of camisoles, mob caps, and bloomers. The duo are now working on Pantaloonies customised jeans, which Bonham Carter describes as "a kind of scrapbook on the bum". Bonham Carter played Bellatrix Lestrange in the final four ''Harry Potter'' films (2007–2011). While filming Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, she accidentally ruptured the eardrum of Matthew Lewis (playing Neville Longbottom) when she stuck her wand in his ear. Bonham Carter received positive reviews as Bellatrix, described as a "shining but underused talent". She played Mrs. Lovett, Sweeney Todd's (Johnny Depp) amorous accomplice in the film adaptation of Stephen Sondheim's Broadway musical, Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street, directed by Tim Burton. Bonham Carter received a nomination for the Golden Globe for Best Actress for her performance. She won the Best Actress award in the 2007 Evening Standard British Film Awards for her performances in Sweeney Todd and Conversations With Other Women, along with another Best Actress award at the 2009 Empire Awards. Bonham Carter also appeared in the fourth Terminator film entitled Terminator Salvation, playing a small but pivotal role. Bonham Carter joined the cast of Tim Burton's 2010 film, Alice in Wonderland as The Red Queen. She appears alongside Johnny Depp, Anne Hathaway, Mia Wasikowska, Crispin Glover and Harry Potter co-star Alan Rickman. Her role was an amalgamation of The Queen of Hearts and The Red Queen. In early 2009, Bonham Carter was named one of The Times’s top 10 British Actresses of all time. She appeared on the list with fellow actresses Julie Andrews, Helen Mirren, Maggie Smith, Judi Dench, and Audrey Hepburn. in the 2010 film The King's Speech]] In 2010, Bonham Carter played Lady Elizabeth Bowes-Lyon/Queen Elizabeth in the film The King's Speech. As of January 2011, she had received numerous plaudits for her performance, including nominations for the BAFTA Award for Best Actress in a Supporting Role and the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress. She won her first BAFTA Award, but lost the Academy Award to Melissa Leo for The Fighter. Bonham Carter signed to play author Enid Blyton in the BBC Four television biopic, Enid. It was the first depiction of Blyton's life on the screen, and Bonham Carter starred with Matthew Macfadyen and Denis Lawson. She received her first Television BAFTA Nomination for Best Actress, for Enid. In 2010, she starred with Freddie Highmore in the Nigel Slater biopic Toast, which was filmed in the West Midlands and received a gala at the 2011 Berlin International Film Festival. She received the Britannia Award for British Artist of the Year from BAFTA LA in 2011. In 2012, Bonham Carter appeared as Miss Havisham in Mike Newell's adaptation of the Charles Dickens novel, Great Expectations. In April 2012, she appeared in Rufus Wainwright's music video for his single "Out of the Game", featured on the album of the same name. Bonham Carter co-starred in a film adaptation of the musical Les Misérables, released in 2012. She played the role of Madame Thénardier. On 17 May 2012, it was announced that Bonham Carter would be appearing in the 2013 adaptation of Reif Larsen's book The Selected Works of T.S. Spivet, entitled The Young and Prodigious T.S. Spivet. Her casting was announced alongside that of Kathy Bates, Kyle Catlett and Callum Keith Rennie, with Jean-Pierre Jeunet directing. She also appeared in a short film directed by Roman Polanski for the clothing brand Prada. The short was entitled A Therapy and she appeared as a therapy patient to Ben Kingsley's therapist. In 2013, she played Red Harrington, a peg-legged brothel madam, who assists Reid and Tonto in locating Cavendish, in the movie The Lone Ranger. Also that year, Bonham Carter narrated poetry for The Love Book App, an interactive anthology of love literature developed by Allie Byrne Esiri. Also in 2013, Bonham Carter appeared as Elizabeth Taylor, alongside Dominic West as Richard Burton, in BBC4's Burton & Taylor which premiered at the 2013 Hamptons International Film Festival. She played the Fairy Godmother in the 2015 live-action re-imagining of Walt Disney's Cinderella.Helena Bonham Carter to Play Fairy Godmother in Disney's 'Cinderella' (Exclusive) Retrieved 22 June 2013 In 2016, Bonham Carter reprised her role of the Red Queen in Alice Through the Looking Glass. In June 2018, Bonham Carter starred in a spin-off of the Ocean's Eleven Trilogy, titled Ocean's 8, alongside Sandra Bullock, Cate Blanchett, Anne Hathaway, and Sarah Paulson. Personal life in 2011]] Causes and politics In early October 2008, it was reported that Bonham Carter had become a patron of the charity Action Duchenne, the national charity established to support parents and sufferers of Duchenne muscular dystrophy."Action Duchenne patron honoured with CBE" . Action Duchenne. Retrieved 7 May 2012 In August 2014, Bonham Carter was one of 200 public figures who were signatories to a letter to The Guardian opposing Scottish independence in the run-up to September's referendum on that issue. Family tragedy In August 2008, four of her relatives were killed in a safari bus crash in South Africa, and she was given indefinite leave from filming Terminator Salvation, returning later to complete filming. Relationships In the 1990s, Bonham Carter briefly dated Rufus Sewell. Kenneth Branagh In 1994, Bonham Carter and Kenneth Branagh met while filming Mary Shelley's Frankenstein. They began an affair, while Branagh was still married to Emma Thompson, whom he had met in 1987 while filming the BBC Series Fortunes of War and married in 1989. At the time, Thompson's career was soaring, while Branagh was struggling to make a success of his first big-budget film (Mary Shelley's Frankenstein). Following his affair with Bonham Carter, Branagh and Thompson divorced in 1995. However, in 1999, after five years together, Bonham Carter and Branagh also called it quits. Thompson has gone on to have "no hard feelings," towards Bonham Carter, calling the past "blood under the bridge." She explained, "You can't hold on to anything like that. It's pointless. I haven't got the energy for it. Helena and I made our peace years and years ago. She's a wonderful woman." Thompson and Bonham Carter later went on to star together in the Harry Potter series. Tim Burton In 2001, Bonham Carter began a relationship with American director Tim Burton, whom she met while filming Planet of the Apes. Burton subsequently took to casting her in his films, including Big Fish, Corpse Bride, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street, Alice in Wonderland and Dark Shadows. After their separation, Bonham Carter mentioned, "it might be easier to work together without being together any more. He always only cast me with great embarrassment.” Bonham Carter and Burton lived in two adjoining houses in Belsize Park, London. Bonham Carter owned one of the houses, Burton later purchased the other and they connected the two. In 2006, they bought the Mill House in Sutton Courtenay, England. It was previously leased by her grandmother, Violet Bonham Carter, and owned by her great-grandfather, former British prime minister H. H. Asquith. Bonham Carter and Burton have two children together: son Billy Raymond Burton (born October 2003)"Helena Bonham Carter- Biography". Yahoo.com. Retrieved 7 May 2012 and daughter Nell Burton (born December 2007). Bonham Carter has stated that her daughter Nell is named after all the "Helens" in her family. Bonham Carter told The Daily Telegraph and several other interviewers of her struggles with infertility and the difficulties she had during her pregnancies. She noted that before the conception of her daughter, she and Burton had been trying for a baby for two years and although they conceived naturally, they were considering IVF. On 23 December 2014, Bonham Carter and Burton announced that they had "separated amicably" earlier that year. Of the separation, Bonham Carter was refreshingly open with the public about the difficulty. She told Harper's Bazaar: “Everyone always says you have to be strong and have a stiff upper lip, but it’s okay to be fragile.... You’ve got to take very small steps, and sometimes you won’t know where to go next because you’ve lost yourself.” She added: “With divorce, you go through massive grief — it is a death of a relationship, so it’s utterly bewildering. Your identity, everything, changes.” In the media Bonham Carter is known for her unconventional and eccentric sense of fashion. Vanity Fair named her on its 2010 Best-Dressed List and she was selected by Marc Jacobs to be the face of his autumn/winter 2011 advertising campaign. She has cited Vivienne Westwood and Marie Antoinette as her main style influences. Ancestry Paternal Bonham Carter's paternal grandparents were British Liberal politicians Sir Maurice Bonham Carter and Lady Violet Bonham Carter. Helena is descended on her father's side from John Bonham Carter, Member of Parliament for Portsmouth. Helena's paternal great-grandfather was H. H. Asquith, 1st Earl of Oxford and Asquith and Prime Minister of Britain 1908–1916. She is the great-niece of Asquith's son, Anthony Asquith, English director of such films as Carrington V.C. and The Importance of Being Earnest, and a first cousin of the economist Adam RidleyL. G. Pine, The New Extinct Peerage 1884–1971: Containing Extinct, Abeyant, Dormant and Suspended Peerages with Genealogies and Arms (London: Heraldry Today, 1972), p. 16 and of politician Jane Bonham Carter. Bonham Carter is a distant cousin of actor Crispin Bonham-Carter. Other prominent distant relatives include Lothian Bonham Carter, who played first-class cricket for Hampshire, his son, Vice Admiral Sir Stuart Bonham Carter, who served in the Royal Navy in both world wars, and pioneering English nurse Florence Nightingale. Maternal Her maternal grandfather, Spanish diplomat Eduardo Propper de Callejón, saved thousands of Jews from the Holocaust during the Second World War, for which he was recognised as Righteous Among the Nations (his own father was a Bohemian Jew). He later served as Minister-Counselor at the Spanish Embassy in Washington, D.C. Her maternal grandmother, Baroness Hélène Fould-Springer, was from an upper class Jewish family; she was the daughter of Baron Eugène Fould-Springer (a French banker descended from the Ephrussi family and the Fould dynasty) and Marie Cecile von Springer (whose father was Austrian-born industrialist Baron Gustav von Springer, and whose mother was from the de Koenigswarter family). Hélène Fould-Springer converted to Catholicism after the Second World War. Hélène's sister was the French philanthropist Liliane de Rothschild (1916–2003), the wife of Baron Élie de Rothschild, of the prominent Rothschild family (who had also married within the von Springer family in the 19th century);Charles Mosley, editor, Burke's Peerage, Baronetage & Knightage, 107th edition, 3 volumes (Wilmington, Delaware, U.S.A.: Burke's Peerage (Genealogical Books) Ltd, 2003), volume 3, page 3415. Hereinafter cited as Burke's Peerage and Baronetage, 107th edition. Liliane's other sister, Therese Fould-Springer, was the mother of British writer David Pryce-Jones. Filmography Film Television Music videos Video games Theatre and radio credits Theatre Radio Awards and nominations Bonham Carter has been the recipient of a BAFTA Award, a Critics' Choice Movie Award and a Screen Actors Guild Award, as well as receiving further nominations for two Academy Awards, seven Golden Globe Awards and three Primetime Emmy Awards. She has received other prestigious awards such as a Satellite Award and two National Board of Review awards. References }} External links * * * * * Helena Bonham Carter at Emmys.com Category:1966 births Category:Actresses from London Category:Asquith family Category:Audiobook narrators Category:People from Islington (district) Category:BAFTA winners (people) Category:Best Supporting Actress BAFTA Award winners Category:Best Actress Empire Award winners Category:Best Actress Genie and Canadian Screen Award winners Category:Best British Actress Empire Award winners Helena Category:Commanders of the Order of the British Empire Category:English film actors Category:English people of Austrian-Jewish descent Category:English people of Czech-Jewish descent Category:English people of German-Jewish descent Category:English people of Spanish descent Category:English radio actors Category:English stage actors Category:English television actors Category:English voice actors Category:20th-century English actors Category:21st-century English actors Category:International Emmy Award for Best Actress winners Category:Liberal Democrats (UK) people Category:Living people Category:Outstanding Performance by a Cast in a Motion Picture Screen Actors Guild Award winners Category:People educated at South Hampstead High School Category:People educated at Westminster School, London Category:People from Golders Green Category:People from Sutton Courtenay Category:Tim Burton